For all the talk of Congressional hurdles to the big Waxman-Markey climate bill, China still looms large-just look at where House speaker Nancy Pelosi is this week. The question, as ever, is whether identifying a problem is the same as solving it.

Speaking today at the China-U.S. Clean Energy Forum, Ms. Pelosi said that global warming was “game-changing” for bilateral relations, an “opportunity we cannot miss.” 

Game-changing in what way? Continuing to push human rights off the foreign-policy radar in favor of greater cooperation on environmental issues, for starters. Ms. Pelosi, like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before her, put the climate challenge at the center of relations between the two countries.